5/8/05

(caleb)
Today we had a little last minute shopping to do and we wanted to take in the sights of Amsterdam and Europe in general for our last day in our trip.
We both agree that a trip before the wedding(especally one that tests your ability to communicate and make decisions together) was the best way to go for us and would recommend it to anyone considering a long term relationship.
This has been one long adventure full of mishaps and good times. We learned that no matter what we are always going to be with each other and we will always love each other. I think that this trip has definatly made our relationship stronger and we cannot imagine life without each other. We are so glad that we got to share it with everyone that we met on the trip and with the people that we love. Thank you to everyone who supported us and communicated with us. We both agree that we would take this trip again in a second.

5/7/05

We had one last travel day on our Eurail Pass so we decided to make a couple day trips. We stopped off first in the quaint town of Delft. Delft also has many canals like Amsterdam, but was less scary junkies and coffeeshops. We came to Delft primarily to check out their well know Saturday Flea market. We just sort of happened upon it while walking through town. So lucky we are! We found some cool stuff.
(caleb)
We hopped back on the train and went to Utrecht. We walked to the tourist office but it was closed. But we took lots of nice pictures. Its a nice place, but everyone still drives those bikes from the 50's so there must be a lot of thevery.
(Angie)
To get out of the train station you had to walk throug one of the largest shopping malls I have seen in Europe, all of the shops were closing though. Everything everywhere was just closing when we got to Utrecht, so we just walked around. It looks almost like Delft. Cobblestone streets, lots of brick buildings and churches and tours. Tulips are in bloom so they are on sale everywhere. Close to 7PM we got a train back to Amsterdam. We took the tram to Dam square. Upon our return to Amsterdam we stopped by Albert Heijn, our favorite Dutch market, to get breakfast for tomorrow. When we checked out the cashier shorted us change back by more than 5 euro! However, we didnt realize this until we got outside. So we had to go back inside and talk to get the cashier and then to his manager. The security officer had to watch the cecurity tape to see if the cashier actually shorted us. Well it turned out the tape backed up our story and they gave us the difference that they shorted us. Such great excitement! hehe
Our tent is snuggly warm. It has been nice and cool here in Holland.

5/6/05

(caleb)
Today we left France. But before we left we decided to go to the doctor because Angie had somthing strange looking on her tongue. THe prognosis was that it was a fungus so we got some Antibiotics for it so hopefully it will clear up.
(angie)
It was very sad to say goodbye to our great friend Carine. She was such a gracious and generous host and we will miss her and her awesome friends SO MUCH! Caleb and I were just saying how Paris seemed like home for only a little over a week. We took a Thalys train from Paris->Brussels and then Intercity trains to Amsterdam. We have been to visit Amsterdam a few tiems on our trip here. It is familiar to us now. We know how to use the transportation system and where to stay. We are camping for the rest of our trip which we are excited to get back to actually. We set up our tent in the only field we hadnt camped in at zeeburg. Nice location. We just relaxed and hung out at our campsite because the weather was warmish and sunny. Lots of campers here this time and everyone was hanging out at their site. Cool atmosphere.

5/5/05

(caleb)
Today we visited Carine's brother Benoit, sister-in-law Sophie, and neice Altar. We packed most of our gear then we had brunch at there apartment. The place was decorated with objects from Mongolia. From there we went to an icecream shop that was close to Notredam. The line was 15 minutes long for the "best icecream in Paris". Angie had the Chocolate and Carmel, and I ate the Fig and Ruhbarb. We soaked up what was left of the sun and then went for milkshakes. We then went to a cafe called no stress. The food was nice and so was the Atmosphere. We walked to the Mulan Rouge and then to the cafe where Amile from Motmare was filmed. It seems like they changed it a little for the movie.

5/4/05

(caleb)
Finally, the Lourve! It was a marathon museum day, we spent over 6 hours in the museum but we saw the WHOLE THING! We hardly took any breaks and we were moving through pretty fast. Its funny how when you look at that much art that at the end of the day your brain feels like mush. But there were many wonderful things to see. Even though the building has been remodeled many times over the centureis, you still get a deep sence of history just from being there.

5/3/05

(caleb)
We took the day off today. We were plannin on seeing the Lourve, but instead we did laundry and relaxed at the apartment. It has a balcony that is very Parision. It rained and it was sunny at the same time.

5/2/05

(caleb)
We slept in today and then went to meet our friend Davi. We got on the wrong train and then ended up being an hour late. We then met up with Elodie and then took us around the largest flee market in Paris. Afterwards went to Carines friends house for snacks and drinks.

5/1/05

(caleb)
Today we rented rollerblades and skated to the Eiffel tower for brunch. We spent the afternoon in the sunshine on the grass under the tower. Angie had a little trouble getting uste to her skates but she soon found her self keeping up with everyone. After we turned in our rollerblades we went to a cafe by the Basteel to have drinks.

1/30/05

Carine, being the responsible business owner that she is, had to work all day today.
French food is so wondeful, we are so happy to be here. There is somthing very romantic about this city. The city is also suprisingly clean. I don't know if it is the new mayor or the fact that everyone was sick of living in trash, but it seems like people really care about what stuff around here looks like and dont litter very much.

Honistly neither of us can remember what exactly we did on this day. Thats what happins when you don't keep up with your journal very well.

1/29/05

We met our friend Davi again in Paris. First we went to Per Lachaise Cemetery to se where among other famous dead people, Jim Morrison from the Doors is buried there. It is a huge cemetery. We spent abouth an hour just walking around. Ive never seen such beautiful grave markers in my live. Some where a but creepy too, like there was one where only the arms were reaching out of the sarcophagus. Next we walked to the Montmare area and the huge cathedral on the hill. Sacre Cauer. There is a fantastic view of the city from up there. We had some great chinese food for not to expencive. We met Carine at her office and then went to her friends house to drink wine and eat some snacks and hang out. We took a taxi home, and so did Davi.

4/28/05

(caleb)
We decided to do some sightseeing on our own today. We went to the old oprahouse, from there the Madeline. Built in 1764, it was finished in 1842 and is a nice big building(it takes up a whole block) and the entrance is free. Then the Concord with the Egyption Obelisque. Then we walked though the Jardin destuileries to find at the end, the Louvre. We walked along the Sen river until we came to Notredam. We didnt want to wait through the giant line to go up to the top so we snuck in through the exit. It is much more impressive on the outside than the inside, but there is a giant stained glass window that is very impressive.
We then jumped onto the metro and went to "chinatown" which turned out to be just a bunch of Asian restraunts. We decided to call it a day.

4/27/05

We unintentionally slept in this morning. Once awake we called our friend Davi from Brazil who is also in Paris for a couple of weeks visiting his sister and her husband with his mom, dad, and older brother. We met Davi on the champs Elysee Virgin Megastore. I have to say that although much larger and more intricate, the public transportation in Paris, compared to Berlin, is much easier to navigate. From the Champs Elysee we went to see the Arc De Triomphe. From there we walked to see the Trocadiro and across the bridge is the most famous hunk of metal...the Eiffel tower. The line to go to the top, though usually an hour long, was short when we arrived. So we only waited like 10 minutes in line for entrance tickets. Unheardof good luck! The view from the top is unbelievable. You can see everything in Paris. The Louvre is by far the largest structure around. We had to walk up a lot of staris to get to the summit but each one was worth it. We tried to go to Pere Lechaise cemetery however, we arrived after 6PM, the closing time. We went with Davi to meet his family for dinner. They invited us to go with them to Bistro Romain. Fantastic food and so kind of his family to invite us. Davis family are genuinely nice people and we had a great time with them. They are so kind to try and speak english with us as much as possible, but Davi's dad speaks no english, so it is more difficult to communicate which is sad because he seems like a cool guy. Davi's mom is a force and is pretty great. She designs clothes in Brazil for boutiques and is doing research here in Paris. We took the train back to Carines and crashed after a long but super day!

4/26/05

About 1am the conductor set 3 indian people in the car with us. They spoke a litle french but no english. The one lady took up the two seats next to me by laying down on them. Fortunatly I got my small revenge because the potato salad wasnt quite out of my system yet. Muh hahaha
The one erson was playing Hindi music however, the earphones were not in his ears so it was very winey and high pitched coming from those little earphones. Angie came within seconds of smashing his CD player. About 2am the train aquired more cars. After spending 2 hours trying to get comfortable on the floor I finally convinced Angie to move to a less crowed car. The one person that was occupying the cabin that we moved to moved right away which was very nice of him because that ment that we got the cabin to ourselves for the last 2 hours of the train ride(much more comfortable)
The train to Brussels was a bit late but we had no problem catching our next train to rotterdam. We try to suck the marrow out of every train day so we squeezed in some sightseeing in. Rotterdam is very much a big city.
There are several good museums which we didnt have time to see. We took several photos, there are 2 bridges near each other that are quite beautiful. It is a lot of skyscrapers and shopping in Rotterdam. We are beginning to miss the mountians and forests of southern Germany and France after being in Berlin this past week. We missed our connecting train to Brussels to Paris so our schedule was thrown off 1 hour but no biggie. The French Thalys trains are quite nice, even 2nd class feels like 1st class. They are fast too. Probebly at least 150MPH. The colored pencils and anime coloring book we just got are coming in very handy. It really helps to pass the time on the train and there is somthing infinitely zen about coloring. God bless Crayola hehe.
We took an RER underground train to meet Carine, my close friend I have known for nearly 16 years, that lives in Paris. It was so fantastic to see her again. The last time was in 2001. We are staying with her for about a week while we are visiting Paris. Carine has the coolest job. She owns her own casting agency. Carine was also nice enough give us her bed and bedroom while we stay here. She is so generous :)

4/25/05

(caleb)We woke up and Angie gave me a nice hair cut. We checked out of the hostel at 12 and checked into some lockers to store our stuff. We walked out and saw the Judishes musem. We picked up a manga and some colored pencils for some on train entertainment. We got some food and beers for the train and then hung out at our hostel until it was time to leave. We made it to the train station with plunty of time to spare. We made small talk with the other passengers until it was time to leave. We had to sit somewhere else then our assigned seats because there were already other people in them. We didnt mind because we got lucky right away and got our own compartment. We wanted to keep it that way so we armed ourselves with german potato salad for dinner. The one mistake we made is that it got to stinkey in there even for us so about 12:30am we opened the window.

quick may update

hi everyone
we are in paris right now staying with my friend carine. we are having a fabulous time. not much time to internet tho so the full update may have to wait. next week is holland and then may 9 we fly home. mixed feelings about that. we cannot believe 6 months have gone by!